Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Matter   Listen
verb
Matter  v. i.  (past & past part. mattered; pres. part. mattering)  
1.
To be of importance; to import; to signify. "It matters not how they were called."
2.
To form pus or matter, as an abscess; to maturate. (R.) "Each slight sore mattereth."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Matter" Quotes from Famous Books



... accurately expressed by Colonel Putnam, who, deputed by the Sons of Liberty to wait on the Governor of his State and inform him of the public sentiment respecting the Stamp Act, made him understand that there would be no temporizing whatever in the matter. ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... important thing to remember after all infections and fevers, no matter how mild. Even where the heart valves have been seriously attacked, as in rheumatism, they will often recover almost completely if you keep at rest, and your heart is not overtaxed by the strain ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... other printed matter, and ruled paper for printed music, printing paper in sheets not less than ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison

... children, young people. It was a great flood. And Father M'Fadden wrote about it—oh, he is a clever priest with the pen—and they made a great subscription in London for the poor people and the chapel. I can't rightly say how much, but it was in the papers, a matter of seven hundred pounds, I have heard say. And it was all ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... three new groups joined the prevailing Robinson-Randolph leadership. The first was the generation born in the 1730's and 1740's which would reach maturity in the 1760's and be waiting to enter the "tobacco club" as a matter of birth. The second was a generation of men who had achieved wealth and influence, mainly in the Piedmont, whose fathers and brothers had not been in the first rank of planter gentry. The third was a new element—burgesses from recently established ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... new name. Some of these names were clear and consoling. It was found, however, that consolation and clearness were alike illusory. But whether we call it God, Providence, Nature, chance, life, fatality, spirit, or matter, the mystery remains unaltered; and from the experience of thousands of years we have learned nothing more than to give it a vaster name, one nearer to ourselves, more congruous with our ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... taken in hand this and other episodes in the history of the Borgias. Every fresh writer who comes to the task appears to be mainly inspired by a desire to emulate his forerunners, allowing his pen to riot zestfully in the accumulation of scandalous matter, and seeking to increase if possible its lurid quality by a degree or two. As a rule there is not even an attempt made to put forward evidence in substantiation of anything that is alleged. Wild and sweeping statement ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... two theories as to the origin of language, which, for shortness, may be defined as the poetic and the matter-of-fact. The former (of which M. Ernest Renan is one of the most eloquent advocates) supposes a primitive race or races endowed with faculties of cognition and expression so perfect and so intimately responsive one to the other, that the name of a thing came into being coincidently with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Most of the subject-matter in Parts One, Two, Three, and Four was written for and has been previously published in the Atlantic Educational Journal, with a view to assisting the rural teacher. The present volume comprises a revision ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw

... in relief. "And the hick stayed to nurse her. There's not so much freight to be hauled right now. See, Al—Heine and Keddie each are driving sixteen, with trailers. The extra horses are white and black—Jo's and Hiram's. I wonder what's the matter with Jo." ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins

... thousand pities wilfully to deceive persons desirous of emigrating with false and flattering pictures of the advantages to be met with in this country. Let the pro and con be fairly stated, and let the reader use his best judgment, unbiassed by prejudice or interest in a matter of such vital importance not only as regards himself, but the happiness and welfare of those over whose destinies Nature has made him the guardian. It is, however, far more difficult to write on the subject of emigration than most persons think: it embraces so ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... time she had become a convert to Christianity, but this was entirely a matter of her own seeking. She had such implicit belief in my wisdom and knowledge, that she begged me to tell her all about my religion in order that she might adopt it as her own. Like most converts, she was filled with fiery zeal ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont

... I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off. "What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... he should know nothing of this matter, and, his thoughts automatically reverting again to Helen Cumberly, he enjoyed that imaginary companionship throughout the remainder of his walk, which led him along Cambridge Road, and from thence, by a devious route, to the ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... England. William established the principle that a vassal owed his first duty to the king and not to his immediate lord. If a noble rebelled and his men followed him, they were to be treated as traitors. Rebellion proved to be an especially difficult matter in England, since the estates which a great lord possessed were not all in any one place but were scattered about the kingdom. A noble who planned to revolt could be put down before he was able to collect his retainers from the most distant ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... relate to the matter of our critical inquiry. As regards the form, there are two indispensable conditions, which any one who undertakes so difficult a task as that of a critique of pure reason, is bound to fulfil. These ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... forfeit all my hopes of happiness in this world, rather than forfeit her good opinion, and that she should think me giddy, unsteady, or precipitate. All I shall further say on the present subject is this, that when I have her answer to what I have written, I will write to her the whole state of the matter, as I shall ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... worried. He admired Nellie's pluck, but he did not like the thought of her going out into the streets alone. Nevertheless, after some discussion, it was decided that she should have her way, on condition that Jack went with her to see that she was quite safe. It was agreed that the matter should be kept dark, and that if Mother asked where Jack and Nellie had gone next evening, the others were to say it ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... this morning ready to go ashore with Tom and Mabelle to say good-bye to our friends, and to see how Silam looked by daylight. It is a neat, picturesque little village with most of its wooden houses standing upon piles. Landing was, as usual, a difficult matter, for there was nobody to hold the boat, and no one to help us. The people in Darvel Bay have evidently very little curiosity, for they scarcely turned their heads to look at us, though European ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... things—as they are. So easy a matter that, you think? So much more difficult and sublime to paint grand processions and golden thrones, than St. Anne faint on her pillow, and her ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin

... to be the dean of the coalition and the arbiter between its elements. He had served in Reform and Conservative governments, but without incurring the reproach of overweening love of office. With his departure that of Brown became only a matter of time. To work with Macdonald as an equal was a sufficiently disagreeable duty; to work under him, considering the personal relations of the two men, would have been humiliating. Putting aside the question of where the blame for the long-standing feud lay, it was inevitable ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... however, she learned that he had all along known of Florent's presence in Paris, and of the meetings, and was only waiting a favourable opportunity of arresting the plotters. She concealed the impending arrest from her husband and from Florent. Notwithstanding her action in this matter, Lisa was not an ill-natured or callous woman. She was only determined that nothing should come between her and a life of ease. In her there was much of her father's nature, though she did not know it. She was merely a steady, sensible Macquart with a logical ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... her adoption of Rose was an immense success. Centropolis, when it learned the news, was thunder-struck. For a matter of hours, one might say, the town held its breath. Then it began to talk. The women began asking questions: What did the actress look like? The men offered lame descriptions. Rose had been seen, apparently, that morning on Main Street, by the entire male ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... a unit. That settles the matter," Porter ended dogmatically. "The men may starve, but ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... the picture was not sold; and after an enterprising journal had unsuccessfully offered a reward for the identification of the portrayed policeman, the matter went gently to sleep while the public employed its annual holiday as usual in discussing the ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... aimed a few sarcasms at me; I suspect that I do not please him much. Will his affection for the Count go so far as to make him jealous of the esteem which he evinces for me? We talked philosophy. He exerted himself to prove that everything is matter. I stung him to the quick in representing to him that all his arguments were found in d'Holbach. I endeavored to show him that matter itself is spiritual, that even the stones believe in spirit. Instead of answering, he beat about the bush. Otherwise, he spoke ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... it took more days to travel from Shrewsbury to Coventry than it now does hours. The cloth of gold was as splendidly, perhaps more splendidly, embroidered than anything we can do now; but in the matter of shirts, shoes, stockings, and the clothing necessary for health and comfort, and of windows and chimneys, and matters necessary for air and shelter, mechanics and day labourers are better provided than the squires and pages of those great noblemen. Five years ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... in the space of a day and a night I gave him five such glysters, but all in vain, for his pains and sickness increased, and I began to repent me of my enterprise. But it was now necessary to put a good face on the matter, and to attempt some other way, yet my last error seemed worse than ever. Endeavouring to inspire him with confidence, I made him lie grovelling on his belly, and, by cords tied to his feet, I raised up the hinder part of his body, so that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... were all the time seeking to abuse him. In almost all instances where I have read of Indian troubles I have noticed that at all times it grew out of the fact that the whites invariably raised the trouble and were always the aggressors. Nevertheless, newspaper reports and any other report for that matter, laid the blame at the door of the wigwam of the red man of ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus

... Sir Christopher's have tried to make out that he was mad, and so couldn't do what he liked with his money. But when they took the matter to the judges to decide, hundreds and hundreds of people he had been good to and helped broke the promise of secrecy that he had always asked of them. And all England rang with the tale of his goodness, and of all the kind and ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit

... mother says so," said Uncle Robert, smiling. "She is hard to please in the matter of 'quite old ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt

... one hundred and seventy fathoms of line, so that "we began," observes Captain Parry, "to flatter ourselves that we had fairly entered the Polar Sea, and some of the most sanguine among us had even calculated the bearing and distance of Icy Cape, as a matter of no very difficult or improbable accomplishment. This pleasing prospect was rendered the more flattering, by the sea having, as we thought, regained the usual oceanic colour, and by a long swell which was rolling in from the southward and eastward." The first circumstance that threw a damp over ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... porter himself, contrast grim enough to any creature of that kind, had been so far seduced as to permit him to sleep there in the Grange, as he loved to do, instead of in ruder, rougher quarters; and, coaxed into odd garrulity on this one matter, told the new-comers the little he knew, with much also that he only suspected, about him; among other things, as to the origin of those precious objects, which might have belonged to some sanctuary or noble house, found thus in the possession of a mere labourer, who is no Frenchman, ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... subject. Delicacy—your amiable lady will agree with me I am sure—should be one of the first characteristics of a medical man.' ('Nothing can be finer or more gentlemanly than Jobling's feeling,' thinks the patient.) 'Very good, my dear sir, so the matter stands. You don't know Mr Montague? I'm sorry for it. A remarkably handsome man, and quite the gentleman in every respect. Property, I am told, in India. House and everything belonging to him, beautiful. Costly furniture on the most elegant and lavish scale. And pictures, which, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... I suppose I ought," said Mary, after a moment of mock consideration. "But then if I were unmarried I ought to do just the same. It's a kind of thing that is a matter of course without talking about it." She had firmly made up her mind that she would submit in no degree to Lady Susanna, and take from her no scolding. Indeed, she had come to a firm resolve long since that she ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... had to start at once," continued Ray. "Wait until you are back at the old desk, Field, and you'll find the major is, and was, your stanch friend in this matter—" ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... would be curious to know if negotiations were first opened between the parties, and if the houseless bees are admitted at once to all the rights and franchises of their benefactors. It would be very like the bees to have some preliminary plan and understanding about the matter ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... the enemy meditates a second attempt on Amherstburg. The greater part of the troops, which are advancing, marched from Kentucky with an intention of joining General Hull. How they are to subsist, even for a short period, in that already exhausted country, is no easy matter to conceive. This difficulty will probably decide them on some bold measure, in the hope of shortening the campaign. If successfully resisted, their ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... fortunate in living in a society where, as in heaven, there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, where in fact nobody minds whether you're married or not, and where morals are very properly regarded as a personal and private matter—" ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... investigators in these fields, especially in Germany, have deprived it of any novelty it might otherwise have possessed, while at the same time aiding me in reaching a more precise statement. This is to me a cause of satisfaction. On so fundamental a matter I should have been sorry to find myself tending to a peculiar and individual standpoint. It is a source of gratification to me that the positions I have reached are those toward which current intelligent and scientific ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... make it easy for my friend Burns to get in. Whether he will find it as easy to get out will be another matter." ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger

... should pass through the hands of Madame de Brinon, who acted, as secretary to the Abbess of Maubrusson, and is celebrated, by the writers of the times, for her wit and dexterity in business. Thus the matter assumed, a still more regular form, and much was expected from the acknowledged talents, learning, and moderation of the actors in ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... ring (choosing it is part of my business in New York), and meanwhile I've gone into all these details in my letter to you, so that you'll be "on to" the situation. I've helped you, and if you see any need for a special effort before I get back (or afterward either for that matter) I shall rely on you. Besides, each one of us agreed to report progress to the other. If I hadn't seized upon this happy thought for the dance, I might have had my work cut out to get Patty, once you'd secured the father. I have a vague and ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)

... himself and the Court. The point had been raised by his friends. His wife had been in London to make interest for him, and a peer had presented a petition in Bunyan's behalf in the House of Lords. The judges had been directed to look again into the matter at the midsummer assizes. The high sheriff was active in Bunyan's favour. The Judges Twisden, Chester, and no less a person than Sir Matthew Hale, appear to have concluded that his conviction was legal, that he could not be tried again, and that he must apply for ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude

... religious craze then prevalent) should be included in the benefits of the appropriation. To those who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a chimera, a visionary dream like mesmerism, rather to be a matter of merriment than seriously entertained. Men of character, men of erudition, men who, in ordinary affairs, had foresight, were wholly unable to forecast the future of the telegraph. Other motions disparaging ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... Colonel Dunn called me. He was leaving for Washington and he wanted me to come in the next day to give a briefing at a meeting. By this time I was taking these briefings as a matter of course. We usually gave the briefings to General Garland and a general from the Research and Development Board, who passed the information on to General Samford, the Director of Intelligence. But this time General Samford, some of the members of his ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... guests in the hotel at this moment, my lord," he said. "Each is a notable man in one branch of practice or another. May I ask if you want advice in a matter of real estate, or some commercial ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... he appointed as his body-guards and chamberlains. When the Macedonians saw him attended by these men, and found themselves shut out from his presence, they were greatly humbled, and after discussing the matter together they became nearly mad with rage and jealousy. At last they agreed to go to his tent without their arms, dressed only in their tunics, and there with weeping and lamentation offered themselves ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch

... riding home, the sultan tormented himself with various conjectures, as to what might be the contents of the caskets, which, do his best, he could not open. The words on the outside threw no light upon the matter; for on one was inscribed, HONOR AND FAME; upon the other, FORTUNE AND WEALTH. Saoud thought it would be difficult to make choice between these two, which seemed equally attractive, equally alluring. When he reached the palace, he sent ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff

... surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this, with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother. He ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... correspondence, in style. How Ibsen heard of him does not seem to be known, but when, in 1851, Ibsen entered, with needless acrimony, into a controversy with his previous teacher about the theatre, Stub complained of his ingratitude, since he had "taught the boy to write." Stub's intervention in the matter, doubtless, was limited to the correction ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... declared Farr, dryly. "And I am so little interested in the matter that I think you'll have to excuse me from further talk about it. You have just had one illustration in a crude way of how the world misunderstands anything that's out of ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... members of the church. Part is due to the grocer, part to the tailor, part to the butcher, part to the dressmaker, and part is borrowed from personal friends. I lent the parson twenty-five dollars myself last week. But mortgage interest is another matter. That, you know, must ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott

... wait for the operations of justice; they took themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her nephews:—in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the slightest particular ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... gesture. "The man wrote—to inquire if I would buy his title. I declined." Then he turned to my father. "Pendleton," he said, "you know about this matter. You know that every step I took was legal. And with pains and care how I got an order out of chancery to make this purchase, and how careful I was to have this guardianship investment confirmed by the court. No affair was ever done ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post

... contentments have so taken him up that now he looks down displeasedly upon the earth as the region of his sorrow and banishment, yet joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evils. He holds it no great matter to live, and his greatest business to die; and is so well acquainted with his last guest that he fears no unkindness from him: neither makes he any other of dying than of walking home when he is abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... of the matter in a nut-shell,' said Harvey afterwards. 'Living nowadays means keeping up appearances, and you must do it just as carefully before your own servants as before your friends. The alternatives are, one general servant, with frank confession of ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... way, as the waltz is now conducted, the employment of the eyes during the slow sentimental movement seems frequently to the lady a matter of some degree of embarrassment; and the method I propose would effectually remove any thing of the sort. There could be no want of an object on which to rest them; no looking with a fixed gaze over the partner's shoulder; no consulting of the cornice; ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... which still exists to a certain degree, was to offer food to a guest before any matter was discussed. In ancient times this was considered very necessary, as it still is among the Apayao who live north of the Tinguian. With them to refuse ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole

... matter was arranged, Sir Francis Vere left the Hague and went to Middleburg, where the preparations for the Dutch portion of the expedition were carried out. It consisted of twenty-two Dutch ships, under Count William of Nassau, and a thousand of the English troops in the pay of the States. The company ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty

... into it a little to make it sound reasonable. The recent brilliant work of P. W. Bridgman (contrary to the earlier speculations of Tammann) indicates that the effect of increased pressure, at high temperature, makes a substance solid and crystalline. Crowd any atoms close enough together, and no matter how fast they expand or contract under the influence of heat the crystalline atomic forces will get to work when they are crowded within their range, and the closest packing, hence that which will yield most to the pressure, hence that which is likely to take ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... of Ripon House on it, her heart gave a little jump. Mr. Windsor had, of course, known of the affair between Lord Geoffrey and his daughter, and had neither approved nor disapproved of it. He knew that, if she made up her mind to marry, he would be consulted only as a matter of form. When she had informed him on their arrival that Lord Brompton was living in the neighborhood, and that she meant to invite him to dinner very soon, the shrewd old man smiled grimly, and acquiesced in ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.

... Street pigeons fluttered thickly around the public library, fat as ever, their numbers greater, their appetites grosser. The ancient library, he knew, had changed little inside: stacks and shelves would still be packed thick with reading matter. Books are bulky, so only the rare editions had been taken beyond the stars; the rest had been microfilmed and their originals left to Johnson and decay. It was his library now, and he had all the time in the world to read all the books in ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith

... for the French, who are already right under the guns of the Malakoff, and have only twenty yards to run. When they get in and drive the Russians out, there they are in a big circular fort, just as they were in the Mamelon, and can hold their own, no matter how many men the Russians bring up to retake it. We've 300 yards to run to get into the Redan, and when we get in where are we? Nowhere. Just in an open work where the Russians can bring their whole strength down upon us. I don't feel at all sure we're ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty

... next of their countrymen who should arrive; and that the natives, seeing our ships pass, and supposing us to be Russians, had resolved to bring off the note, thinking it might induce us to stop. Fully convinced of this, I did not stay to enquire any farther into the matter, but made sail, and stood away to the westward, along the coast; perhaps I should say along the islands, for we could not pronounce, with certainty, whether the nearest land, within us, was continent or islands. If not the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... the library, and render them the favourite study of those who are interested in the romance of real life. These stories, with all the reality of established fact, read with as much spirit as the tales of Boccacio, and are as full of strange matter for reflection and amazement."—Britannia. ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... "No matter what it involves. You don't ask what the X-ray involves; you ask, first of all, is it a fact? If the girl has these powers, then what? You don't even know ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... ordinary run of cases in which undue influence is alleged to have induced the enactment of a law, the ruling is clearly sound. But this was no ordinary case. The fraud asserted against the grant was a matter of universal notoriety; it was, indeed, the most resounding scandal of the generation; and surely judges may assume to know what is known to all and may act upon ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... His extraordinarily lanky pinched figure seemed even lankier than it was by nature because he always carried his head so high: he peered down from that elevation upon humanity at large as if there was something the matter with his eyes which prevented him from properly raising the lids. In him the dimensions of the family nose were made still more remarkable by an inordinately tiny chin and thin compressed lips. His moustache was shaved down to the very corners of his mouth, only a little mouse-tail sort of arrangement ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... whole arrangement had been made between them by which she had become Guy's wife. He spoke with such deep affection about General Pomeroy, and so feelingly of his intense love for his daughter, that at last Zillah began to understand perfectly the motives of the actors in this matter. She saw that in the whole affair, from first to last, there was nothing but the fondest thought of herself, and that the very money itself, which she used to think had "purchased her," was in some sort an investment for her own benefit in the future. As the whole ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... Jack simply. "We never face a disagreeable fact until it comes so close that we hit ourselves against it. I'm sorry; but don't worry more than you can help. I've been short of money all my life, but I don't know anyone who has had a better time. So long as you have youth and health, what does it matter whether you are rich or poor? It's all in the way you look at things. For useful purposes, most people can make their money go farther than mine, but for sheer fun and enjoyment I'll back my ...
— More about Pixie • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... this other slavering, blear-eyed, slovenly fellow, that thou seest come out of his study after midnight, dost thou think he has been tumbling over books to learn how to become a better man, wiser, and more content? No such matter; he will there end his days, but he will teach posterity the measure of Plautus' verses and the true orthography of a Latin word. Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory, the most useless, frivolous, and ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne

... and feel easy. He knew well that she was winning control over him in some sort, and he fought against it grimly. Soon he became weirdly conscious of being two men—one, whom she had grasped and overcome, a physical man who did not matter much, and another, mental man who was free from her, who could understand her, whom she ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... impatient toss of his cropped head. And he thrust his thumbs into his belt and drew back. "Too much have I already done in bidding Rekoni try the feat. Well is it for me that he is not hurt by his fall into the sea, else would his father's whip be about my back. Even as the matter stands, my master will surely stop my food for having left his sheep ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... matter: If people would observe the obvious occasions of silence, if they would subdue the inclination to tale-bearing, and that eager desire to engage attention, which is an original disease in some minds, they would be in little danger of offending with their ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... to either a talkative mood or a silent one, always gentle in manner, and always unobtrusively melancholy, Saffren never took the initiative, though now and then he asked a question about some rather simple matter which might be puzzling him. Whatever the answer, he usually received it in silence, apparently turning the thing over and over and inside out in his mind. He was almost tremulously sensitive, yet not vain, for he was neither afraid nor ashamed to ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... place where Jemmy was sitting, they found that he was bending down over his foot, and moaning with, pain. Beechnut asked him what was the matter. He said that he had sprained his foot dreadfully. Beechnut stopped the horse, and giving the reins to Phonny, he got out to see. Phonny immediately gave ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... to make of Edna's speech; it was not exactly flippant, but it seemed so strange to hear so young a creature speak in that cool, matter-of-fact way. ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... I want to see her. Go and tell her, June no matter if she is in her night-gown, tell her I want to speak to her ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell

... the second honour. If now, which is not impossible, any occasion should arise for a modern congress of the leading nations that represent civilisation, not probably in the Isthmus of Corinth, but on that of Darien, it would be a matter of mere necessity, and so far hardly implying any expression of homage, that the English language should take the station formerly accorded to the Grecian. But I come back to the thesis which I announced, viz., to the twofold onus which the English language is called ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... assure you, my dear, were I man, and a man who loved my quiet, I would not have one of these managing wives on any consideration. I would make it a matter of serious inquiry beforehand, whether my mistress's qualifications, if I heard she was notable, were masculine or feminine ones. If indeed I were an indolent supine mortal, who might be in danger of perhaps choosing to marry for ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... from rheumatism, it is almost invariably the sign of disease of the brain in the one case, of the hip-joint in the other. To this rule there are indeed exceptions, but it will always be well to leave it to the doctor to determine—no easy matter by the bye—whether any given case is one of the ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... with the Pandavas safely come out of the present strife with their foes slain, and the kingdom recovered by them. The Pandavas themselves have observed their vow with such truthfulness sticking to Dharma that they are incapable of being defeated by their enemies. In the matter of my present sorrows, however, I blame neither myself nor Suyodhana, but my father alone. Like a wealthy man giving away a sum of money in gift, my father gave me away to Kuntibhoja. While a child ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... preferred to leave their country rather than submit to a hated yoke. Step by step the Serbians, always facing the enemy, retreated to the sea. It was a terrible tragedy. Their retreat will remain a matter of legend, like that of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon. As they retreated, the Serbians called, in their despair, ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne

... The matter was different now. Into this empty house had danced the girl. Her gay presence discovered its barrenness. There was not a chair on which she could sit, not a dish ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... coupled with fervent sympathy. The poet may be an inspired illiterate, the romance-writer an uninspired hack. Under no circumstances can either of them be accused of wronging or deceiving the public, however incongruous their efforts. They write well or badly, and there the matter ends. The historian, who fails in his duty, deceives the reader and wrongs the dead. A man weighted with such responsibilities is deserving of an audience more than usually select—an audience of his equals, men of the world. No vulgarian ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... countless soldiers to the realization that no matter how much they believed they had loved their mothers, they had never fully appreciated how ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... commas, being most anxious to express my obligation to him for his carefully formulated epitome of the laws of design. But though I have largely quoted, there remains still much most interesting and suggestive matter, which I recommend the reader to seek in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... places it was impossible to set down the foot without treading upon and crushing them. Now the pulpy outer part, when thus crushed, is almost as gummy and sticky as cobblers' wax, and the consequence was, that walking over the nuts was no easy matter—in short it was both difficult and disagreeable. Sometimes a whole cluster of them would adhere to the soles of our shoes, or, slipping from under our feet, would threaten us with a fall, and thus our advance was continuously impeded ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... people who thought over much about looking after their skins; but this business of lions was not exactly what she had been used to. They appeared to her so hungry, and so remarkably ill tempered; and the man was as one to three, and had, apparently, no advantage in the matter of teeth ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... petition we will almost invariably be instantly lifted up to such a state of adoration that the whole soul is nothing but a burning song, a thing of living worship. At first I was inclined to blame myself, but now I know that it is acceptable for us to pass from petitioning (no matter who or what for) to high adoration, even though it is a great personal indulgence (and the petitioning is a hard task)—an indulgence so extreme that I cannot call to my mind anything in any experience or time of my life, excepting actual raptures, which could, or can, in any way ...
— The Golden Fountain - or, The Soul's Love for God. Being some Thoughts and - Confessions of One of His Lovers • Lilian Staveley

... First, as an instance of modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the flageolet and the old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon's idea of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg, were something strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Meg's appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the scene of the flageolet, and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the four strong notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is laid aside. The second point is still more curious. ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... isn't a necessary goal, but most women, as well as most men, look forward to it at some time of life, and, as a rule, a woman is forced to take her choice of the two or three men that offer themselves, no matter what they are. I admire a man who takes up the cudgels for women, as he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... to worry me with questions, you can just run away; if you were to be kept awake night after night, and never know what it was to be without headaches, having every nerve in your body quivering from exhaustion, you wouldn't wonder what the matter was.' ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... Thus it was tribal in that it comprised every Frenchman within its scope, and feudal in that it formed the caste distinctions, noble, clergy, people. In other words it afforded little ground for comparison with the English Parliament; the point at which it approached it nearest being in the matter of the power to vote the taxation levied by the Crown; but this power the States-General had lost so far ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. Which is not the case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it—and why should you be interested in ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... As a matter of fact, he died of pneumonia; and on the night of his death sent over a grubby note asking me to come and ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of nerve, my dear mother; I did not think, when I boasted of it as one of her truly valuable acquirements, I should so soon have seen it put to the proof; to her letter to Caroline I refer you for all entertaining matter. ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... was rather inclined to make a song of it all, genuinely thankful to have so sound an excuse for staying to witness the dramatic developments that might possibly be in store for us. I do not deny that I appreciated her feeling in that matter. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... sorrow. I shall, however, though filled with great grief, destroy those hostile troops of great might. Thus slaughtering in the midst of battle my assembled foes, I shall rejoice with thee today. Examining all the quivers containing my arrows, tell me, O Suta, ascertaining the matter well, what quantity of arrows is still left on my car, that is, how ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... and the cause he represented grows stronger and sterner by his death. Can it be that so wise a devil was so foolish here? Must it not have been the act of one poor madman, born and nursed in his own reckless brain?" My friends, let us understand this matter. It was a foolish act. Its folly was only equalled by its wickedness. It was a foolish act. But when did sin begin to be wise? When did wickedness learn wisdom? When did the fool stop saying in his heart, "There is no God," and acting godlessly in the ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks

... quite dead yet, only caged, and where is the man in whose bosom there lurks no wish that he could open the door just once in a way and let them have a frisk? In the East there is no hypocrisy about the matter. The tiger's den is barred and locked, and the British Government keeps the key, but the ape has an appointed day in the year on which he shall have his outing. They call it the Holi, which is a misnomer, for of all Hindu festivals this is the ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... not know, and are not presumed to know, the law. They are not sworn to decide the law;" [3] they are not required to do it... The jury ought not to assume the jurisdiction of law. They do not know, and are not presumed to know, anything of the matter. They do not understand the language in which it is conceived, or the meaning of the terms. They have no rule to go by but their passions and wishes." 8 ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... well adapted for the formation of cheese. For the nature and flavour of the cheese depend, in a great measure, upon the cream or oily matter which is left in the curds; so that if every particle of cream be removed from the curds, the cheese is scarcely eatable. Rich cheeses, such as cream and Stilton cheeses, derive their excellence from the quantity, as well as the quality, of the cream that enters ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... a remarkable sense of movement, of energy, of pressing forward, no matter what the view point of the spectator. The monument should be seen from as far north as possible, near the corner of the California building, perhaps. From here, from the Esplanade as one approaches from either east or ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney

... made a big spread, an' put a lot ob sugar on de table fer supper, an' Tom jis' went fer dat sugar. He put a lot in his tea. But somehow it didn't tase right, an' wen dey come ter fine out what war de matter, dey hab sent him a barrel ob san' wid some sugar on top, an' wen de sugar war all gone de san' war dare. Wen I yeard it, I jis' split my sides a larfin. It war too good to keep; an' wen it got roun', Jake war as mad as a March hare. But it sarved ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... do not. The only surprising thing is that you held the lead so long as you did, and managed to come in third. I know I couldn't have run a single lap if I'd been on that wheel. What's the matter with it? Wasn't it all ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe

... the depot of the Prefecture only a few days. The confession made by Ledantec and the evidence of other witnesses so amply attested the innocence of the M. Gascoigne accused of the Tinplate Street murder that his release followed as a matter of course. Hyde waited in Paris to hear the issue of the trial of the real offenders, and, painful as it was to be present at the sentence of the woman who had once borne his name, he yet listened without flinching to the whole ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... truly said in such a case is this,—that I did see the shape or likeness of such a person, if my senses or eyesight were not deluded: and they can honestly say no more, because they know no more (except the Devil tells them more); and if he do, they can but say he told them so. But the matter is still incredible: first, because it is but their saying the Devil told them so; if he did so tell them, yet the verity of the thing remains still unproved, because the Devil was a liar and a murtherer (John viii. 44), ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... to what he regards as the real knot of the difficulty, the real and fatal bar to all possibility of a mutual understanding? If his charges are untrue or exaggerated in detail or colouring, that is another matter; but the whole of his pleading for peace presupposes that there are great and serious obstacles to it in what is practically taught and authorised in the Roman Church; and it is rather hard to blame him for "not making the best ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... of Mr. Daly on hunting mornings, was not a matter of indifference. It was not that he wore beautiful pink tops, or came out guarded from the dust by little aprons, or had his cravat just out of the bandbox, or his scarlet coat always new, and in the latest fashion, nor had his hat just come from ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... border without such a permit; that he was well acquainted with all the official regulations which applied to his trade; that this would probably prove to be only a mistake; the castellan would please consider the matter and, since he had a long day's journey before him, not detain him here unnecessarily any longer. But the castellan answered that he was not going to slip through the eighteenth time, that the ordinance concerning this matter had been only recently issued, and that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... Unlucky speculation—so much waste paper,' interrupted Robson. 'Your lordship had better let me clear away the trash, which will only complicate the matter, ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... money we have got." "Give me the money," said the stranger, and began with the first, and gave him a stroke over the shoulders with his whip, which made him groan, saying, "Here is one," and so he served them all, and they all groaned at the matter. When he came to the last he paid him well, saying, "Here is the twelfth man." "God's blessing on thy heart," said they, "for thus finding our ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... set before himself was the establishment of cordial relations with the other members of the party. He realized that his own fault had made this necessary. It had been an easy matter to get on good terms with Jim, Budge, and Throppy. With Filippo it was a little harder; but soon he, too, thawed out when he found that Percy treated him courteously and was willing to do his share of the camp work. Even Nemo wagged his tail when Percy appeared, ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... to ignore the situation in America was now impossible. The law had to be withdrawn or made effective by force of arms. When the matter came up in Parliament in January, 1766, Grenville, as leader of the opposition, still claimed that the Stamp Act was a reasonable measure, and one that must be maintained, more than ever now that the colonists had insolently denied its legality, and with violence amounting ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... clearly and precisely about the matter. He even remembered to turn off his gadget because he would need it to avenge Jill. But when he tried to think of any subject unconnected with revenge, his ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... minutes to get out of the way," was the sole notice to that crowd of helpless creatures lying in their cots, at three o'clock in the morning. Men and women begged for mercy. In vain their cries. The officer in charge of the matter was inexorable. Clotheless and shoeless, the inmates of the almshouse ran in terror from the spot to seek shelter in the ravines. But there were those who could not run, who, while the train was laying, rent the air with shrieks of terror. The train was fired ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... may have argued the matter out with himself somewhat in this fashion: that love of women in a man may be controlled; and looking back into his own life he may have found this view confirmed. Joseph remembered that his grandmother often spoke to him ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... with them as many souls as possible; the evil souls of Stainton Moses desire the perdition of man to gratify their own bad inclinations. Demons are spirits, wicked indeed, but yet spirits, whereas the evil souls of Stainton Moses are only miserable ghosts driven mad by love of matter. Certainly everything is possible, as Professor Flournoy says, but this theory is somewhat astonishing, for it seems to make the inhabitants of the next world gravitate round our miserable earth, and is like the old astronomical theory that placed our ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... They let the matter go at that. Jack looked very wistful when his father took the babies out Sunday morning and said no word to him. He followed Marilla round as she dusted up the rooms and wanted to know ...
— A Modern Cinderella • Amanda M. Douglas

... pains of hunger. Continual exposure to the air by night and by day contributed not a little to increase the desire for food. It is true, there was the yet untried lake, "bright, boundless, and free," gleaming in silvery splendour, but in practice they knew nothing of the fisher's craft, though, as a matter of report, they were well acquainted with its mysteries, and had often listened with delight to the feats performed by their respective fathers in the art of angling, ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... his head very knowingly. "No matter; you have been shipwrecked too! Sir, shipwreck shuffles dates as a player does cards, and the best of us will go wrong in famine, loneliness, cold, and peril. Be of good cheer, my friend; all will return to you. Sit, sir, that I may hear your adventures, and I ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... not be discouraged, no matter what happens, when you arrive in New York. Try your best to get some good position. If you run short of funds inside of the next two months, open the envelope enclosed with this. It contains something that will help you on your way. ...
— From Farm to Fortune - or Nat Nason's Strange Experience • Horatio Alger Jr.

... "That's merely a matter of logic. We know that homo sapiens—because of his free choice, so to speak—uses, on an average, not more than a tenth of his mental ability. All right. These people have created, to all intents and purposes, a man. They surely had ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... magnanimous kingly protector, shelters and fosters all its springing growths. What is criticism as a science? Essentially this—FEELING KNOWN—that is, affections of the heart and imagination become understood subject-matter to the self-conscious intelligence. Must feeling perish because intelligence sounds its depths? Quite the reverse. Greatest minds are those in which, in and out of poetry, the understanding contemplates the will. Then first the soul has its proper strength. Disorderly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various

... their friends to take a bunch of Texas men up into the Falling Wall and shoot and burn men because they're rustlers, you're very much mistaken. And I can tell you the people of this country won't agree with you either, no matter what some folks in this town may say to ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... had seen how this whole affair was turning, and that there would decidedly be the rope, hanging, and other disagreeable things for the principal personages in this comedy, he had not cared to identify himself with the matter further. The outcasts with whom he had remained, reflecting that, after all, it was the best company in Paris,—the outcasts had continued to interest themselves in behalf of the gypsy. He had thought it very simple on the part of people who had, like herself, nothing ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo

... second thing which I have already remarked was an auxiliary towards the maintenance of peace and order in Samoa, viz. superstitious fear. If the chief and heads of families, in their court of inquiry into any case of stealing, or other concealed matter, had a difficulty in finding out the culprit, they would make all involved swear that they were innocent. In swearing before the chiefs the suspected parties laid a handful of grass on the stone, or whatever ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... inventor had suspended rather than abolished. A general amnesty was also promulgated against the revolted provinces; they received it with contempt and defiance. Nothing then was left to Requesens but to renew the war; and this he found to be a matter of no easy execution. The finances were in a state of the greatest confusion; and the Spanish troops were in many places seditious, in some openly mutinous, Alva having left large arrears of pay due to almost all, notwithstanding ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... of Thoinot Arbeau. He says, "Dancing is practised in order to see whether lovers are healthy and suitable for one another: at the end of a dance the gentlemen are permitted to kiss their mistresses, in order that they may ascertain if they have an agreeable breath. In this matter, besides many other good results which follow from dancing, it becomes necessary for the good governing of society." Such was the doctrine of the Courts of Love, which stoutly took up the defence of dancing against the clergy. In those days, as soon ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... lady, "who gave you any exercise of judgment in the matter? I command you, sir; there is nothing left ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various

... about it! But I'll have to deviate A little in beginnin', so's to set the matter straight As to how it comes to happen that I never took a wife— Kind o' "crawfish" from the Present to the ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... it's more by 'arf like bein' shot up out of the Other Shop—an' landin' in the middle of New Jerusalem! Weeks along"—he picked up the shabby bowler that had dropped upon the Turkey carpet—"for weeks along I've been tryin' to find out what was the matter wi' me! Now I knows! I've bin 'omesick—fair old 'omesick for a sniffer of the very plyce I was 'oppin' with 'appiness to git away out of four months back. Good old Gueldersdorp!" He winked the wet out of his eyes and pointed to Mrs. Keyse with his elbow. "An' look at 'er! Doin' a blub on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... country Logotheti's servants might have supposed that he retired to this solitude to practise necromancy or study astrology, or to celebrate the Black Mass. But his matter-of-fact Frenchmen merely said that he was 'an original'; they even said so with a certain pride, as if there might be bad copies of him extant somewhere, which they despised. One man, who had an epileptic aunt, suggested ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... Hatch. "Without doubt there will be others in the same predicament. You can easily manufacture some masks, and, being strangers here, no one outside your own party will recognize you. I'm sorry I can't assist you in the matter of dress, but I can help the male members of the party. I have a full Indian rig and a cowboy outfit, which will do for two. The third can dress in old clothes, like a hunter or guide. The whole thing can be arranged somehow if you care to go. Where there's a will there's ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... attention. The room was dark; no one saw them. It did not matter. Joy and courage and high hopes filled ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine

... easy matter,' replied the fox. 'But wait a moment. I have an idea. Stand at the door of the hen-house, and wait there for your horses. In the meantime I will slip in among the hens through a hole in the wall and give them a good chase, so that the noise they make will ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang

... Mr Willet, as if that were a matter entirely between himself and his conscience. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... response to her repeated ring. "What's the matter? Why, there's an engine off the track a little ways off, and our crew and engine has gone to help. No, nobody hurt. Just a freight engine. Don't know how long. Mebbe one ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett

... in modern times. Perhaps some of his popularity may have been due to his being supposed to be the author of those tragedies which the world has long ceased to read, but which delighted a period that preferred Euripides to Aeschylus: while casuists must have found congenial matter in an author whose fantastic cases of conscience are often worthy of Sanchez or Escobar. Yet Seneca's morality is always pure, and from him we gain, albeit at second hand, an insight into the doctrines of the ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... is, that what Alberoni always dreaded, at last happened to him. He trembled, at every one, no matter of how little importance, who arrived from Parma (the Queen of Spain, it has not been forgotten, was of that Duchy); he omitted nothing by the aid of the Duke of Parma, and by other means, to hinder the Parmesans from coming to Madrid; and was in terror ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... into a chair and took up a paper, turning the pages at random.—What was the matter with the room? Certainly it was not close, nor damp, nor chill. What was it? He let the paper fall to the floor, and his eyes roved from one object to another.—Where had he seen that Chinese mask before, and that great silver-faced clock? Somehow, mysterious and strange ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... of coloration are observed in waters that are believed to be the purest; and it is rather from reasonings founded on analogy, than from any direct analysis, that we may throw any light on so uncertain a matter. In the vast system of rivers near the mouth of the Rio Zama, a fact which appears to me remarkable is, that the black waters are principally restricted to the equatorial regions. They begin about five degrees ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... he said, "but present-day education is a snare. We are a vulgar nation, you know. That is what is really the matter with us—our ambitions are vulgar, our pride is vulgar. We want to fit into the world and get the most we can out of it; we don't, most of us, just want to give it our best. That's what I mean by vulgarity, wanting to take and ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... pass a house, from within which a great screaming was to be heard. On inquiring of my companion what was the matter, I was informed that some person had died in that house the day before, and that the sound I heard was the wail of the "mourning women." I requested admission to the room where the deceased lay. Had it not been for the circumstance that a few pictures of saints ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... left to be done Sunday, for though there was no church to go to, the Grays, and for that matter all of the Bay people, were close observers of the Sabbath, and left no work to be done on that day that could be done ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace

... matter of fact, one of the three men in the taxi recognized Kitty, but too late to intercept her. Her manoeuvre had confused him temporarily. And while he and his companions were debating, Kitty had time to summon ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath

... to be an ass, my dear fellow. You don't suppose you can be allowed to do a mad thing like this without my telling you what I think of it. You know, I have never had much opinion of your judgment—except, perhaps, in the matter of horses; but in your admiration for this Miss Day your taste is to my thinking astoundingly bad. I call her a commonplace, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... when Julia was dismally smitten with a sense of her own uselessness, Miss Toland thought her shy little attempts at friendliness very charming, and when she casually corrected the faults of Julia's speech, she gave no further thought to the matter, although Julia turned hot and cold at the recollection for many a day ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris

... citizens of this city," continued the minister, encouraged by the evident acquiescence of the druggist, "should take this matter up as a body, ten men like Young couldn't ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... matter of weeks. Bull was still unable to leave his bed. He was dull and listless, bony of hand, and liable to sleep many hours through the very heart of the day. At this point of his recovery the door opened one day, and, in the warmth of the afternoon, a big man came into the room, shutting the door ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand

... anybody else, if I can avoid it. Captain Hall, who has already done North and South America, and Loo Choo, will, I have no doubt, be here by-and-bye, taking Africa in his way: and as I can make up my three volumes of fiction without trespassing upon his matter of fact, I refer you to his work when it appears, for a description of this gorgeous monument of rapine, this painted ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... I exercised hospitality, and whom I made free of my house, and who now shows his gratitude by stealing the heart of my daughter, like a pitiful thief. Oh, do not attempt to deny this. I know it, Elise; and if I have hitherto avoided speaking to you about this matter, it was because I had confidence in your sound sense, and in the purity of heart of a German girl to sustain you in resisting a feeling which would lead you astray from the path of duty and honor. I do not say that you loved ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... bush, skulls, sacrifices, and charms. A number of half-starved cowed women and girls covered with dirt and sores are quarrelling over a pipe. The shrill voice and long arms of the mistress settle the matter, and make them fly helter- skelter. They call on Mary to speak, and after many interruptions she subdues and controls them, and leaves ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone

... have happened had not Mr. Briand interposed to say that any transfer of the Philippines must be regarded as a signal for a twenty per cent increase in the Boy Scouts of France. As a tactful conclusion to the matter President Harding raised ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock

... went. Or if she went she came back again. As James Stonehouse said in a burst of savage humour, "Kick Christine out of the front door and she'll come in at the back." Every morning, no matter what had happened the night before, there was the quiet, resolute scratch of her latch-key in the lock, and when James Stonehouse, sullen and menacing, brushed rudely against her in the hall, she went on steadily up the stairs to where Robert waited for her, and they ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... just as they were going to engage the enemy. Mr. Hamilton asked, If it was Mr. Cargil's work? He answered, Yes, (whereas Mr. Cargil knew nothing of it). Whereupon, being in haste, and having no doubt of Mr. Cargil's veracity therein, he did that which was still matter of great grief to him afterwards, as he himself, in a letter from Holland dated ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... difficult to say what the dinner consisted of. It was a mixture of fish and vegetable matter, but not an atom ...
— The Wizard of the Sea - A Trip Under the Ocean • Roy Rockwood

... to send Titus to Corinth to promote it there. He had previously visited it on the same errand (chap. xii. 14), and now is coming to complete 'this grace.' The rest of the passage is Paul's appeal to the Corinthians for their help in the matter, and certainly never was such an appeal made in a more dignified, noble, and lofty tone. He has been dilating on the liberality of others, and thereby sanctioning the stimulating of Christian liberality, in the same ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... we'd stay to nurse him or bury him, but he's past nursin' an' he ain't quite ripe for buryin', son. He will be, by mornin'; but what difference to him whether he's layin' atop the ground or under the ground? An' that's a matter o' twelve hours to us, an' twelve hours counts a heap, on the Injun trail. The Injuns can't do him any harm. They kin harm us a lot. No; it's time we kin light out, an' if we say he's dead we'll not be lyin', for dead he'll be long ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... Witham and diverting its course, that the vessels accustomed to ply on it with turf and faggots for the people of Lincoln, could now only do so at great peril. {154e} We may, perhaps, however, exonerate the “Lady Superior” and her nuns from all blame in this matter, when we remember that there was a “Master of the Nuns” {154f} and other male officials who, indeed, battened on the Priory in such numbers, that it was even said that they were more numerous than ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... of food are, as I have already stated, almost identical with the principal nitrogenous constituents of animals. Unlike the non-plastic substances, they are convertible into each other with little, if any, loss either of matter or of force. Not many years since it was the fashion to estimate the nutritive value of a food-substance by its proportion of nitrogen; but this method—not yet quite abandoned—was based on erroneous views, and yielded results ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... of my mother at the hands of the Missouri Militia. My father was in the employ of the United States government and had the mail contract for five hundred miles. While in Washington attending to some business regarding this matter, a raid was made by the Kansas Jayhawkers upon the livery stable and stage line for several miles out into the country, the robbers also looting his store and destroying his property generally. When my father returned from Washington and learned of these outrages he went to Kansas City, ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... pleasing or ingratiating to any junior than to be asked by his superior for his opinion on any matter—provided that it is given a respectful hearing. Any man gets a little fagged from being told all the time. When he is consulted and asked for a judgment, it builds ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense



Words linked to "Matter" :   ooze, remit, subject matter, glop, nontextual matter, solute, soft copy, pictorial matter, postscript, gray matter, text, writing, res judicata, import, goop, residue, be, written material, physical entity, supplement, affair, trouble, piece of writing, sediment, vegetable matter, matter-of-course, ylem, least, press, fluid, matter of law, for that matter, antimatter, back matter, consequence, goo, problem, matter-of-fact, cognitive content, written matter, textual matter, no matter, system, recitation, state of matter, crux of the matter, solid, white matter, addendum, deposit, sludge, hard copy, mental object, matter of course, dark matter, typescript, moment, law of conservation of matter, area, gook, concern, dictation, topic, substance, faecal matter, end matter, grey matter, guck, subject, weigh



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com